Knives and firearms discovered as part of Op Target

Operation Target officers working to disrupt serious and violent crime recovered a large quantity of knives and two firearms as part of an ongoing forcewide campaign.

Op Target is our forcewide campaign to tackle serious and violent crime on the street of Merseyside

We launched our campaign on 1st July with a pledge to use all our available resources to target criminals and bring them to justice through disruption, proactive action, education and partnership working. As part of our activities we have asked members of the public to surrender unlawfully held or unwanted guns and ammunition to prevent them from getting into criminal hands.

We were contacted by a number of people to ask us to collect knives and guns this week to make sure they were disposed of safely.

Chief Inspector Matthew Moscrop said: “We were contacted by a member of the public to recover a number of knives for safe disposal. The woman said she had considered putting the knives in her wheelie bin – which is something we do not recommend – and we are so pleased she contacted us. We would like to say to anyone who knows where there are any knives or firearms to contact us so that we can dispose of them safely.

“We would also like to appeal to anyone dealing in antiques to come forward with any knives or firearms as we have also recently been contacted by an antiques dealer to recover firearms and knives. We can dispose of them for you, safely.

We know issues such as knife and gun crime really impact on our communities and we are committed to tackling these issues head on and really making a difference.The more weapons we take off the streets of Merseyside the better as this means they cannot fall into the hands of criminals. We want the community to help us as we continue to tackle serious and violent crime on the streets of Merseyside, so please talk to us or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact @MerPolCC, 101 or @CrimestoppersUK, anonymously on 0800 555 111.